Learning Management System Talk

30.03.08

On March 25, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office issued its Non-Final Action on the re-examination of the Blackboard Patent. We are studying the document, found here, but in short, the PTO has rejected all 44 of Blackboardâ€™s claims. We caution that this is a NON-final action; both Blackboard and Desire2Learn will have an opportunity to comment before a final action will issue, and after that, the decision will be subject to appeals.

03.02.07

After months of criticism that its patent policies had the potential to squelch important education projects, Blackboard on Thursday announced a â€œpatent pledgeâ€ under which it vowed not to assert its patent rights to sue open source projects or home-grown software used by colleges and universities.See story

27.01.07

In response to a formal request filed by the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today ordered re-examination of the e-learning patent owned by Blackboard Inc.See story

Believe it or not the US Patent and Trademark Office has apparently granted Blackboard a patent for pretty much anything remotely related to learning management systems. Scary time ahead for LMS vendors???See story

18.06.06

A group of LearnCenter users have established an unofficial LearnCenter support forum on LMS Talk for users of Learn.com products. Users of other LMS's are encouraged to do likewise if they'd like to further develop open discussion on online learning technologies.See story

20.11.05

This article looks at the growing demand for Open Source learning management system products and addresses the question "are Open Source LMSs are a viable alternatives to commercial system?". Clients apparently want to know if OS platforms as good as commercial products.See story

13.10.05

Two leading providers education software , Blackboard Inc. and WebCT, Inc., have announced an agreement to merge. Blackboard will acquire WebCT in a cash transaction for $180 million. The transaction will combine the two e-Learning organizations into a single company.See story

29.08.05

Recent survey showed 30 percent of solution providers prefer the self-paced online training option. Another 20 percent gave a nod to a hybrid method of off-site, instructor-led classroom including an online component.See story

03.06.05

In the more than half a decade of e-learning availability, one thing has become clear: the Internet is not a good platform for teaching. Or so says Roland Van Liew of Hands On Technology Transfer.See story

10.05.05

An overall move toward e-learning and a sharp increase in training outsourcing deals are the driving forces behind current growth in the U.S. corporate training and development industry, according to new research from media industry forecast and analysis firm Simba Information.See story

08.01.05

Demand for online courses will almost double in 2005, as professionals and companies realize e-learning's distinct advantages, according to officials at RedVector.com, a Tampa-based company that offers online courses to professionals involved in the design and construction industries. For full release see...

16.04.04

Would you like to publicise your LMS product, announce your system upgrade, explain a standard?
Learning Management System Talk is now accepting submissions of articles, opinions, media releases, news stories about LMS products, standards and the industry in general.
If you have any material you would like to submit, please forward it to submissions@lmstalk.com

14.08.03

There appears to be a bit of life on this site at last. Welcome to the people have joined this forum in past week and I hope we are seeing the beginnings of an ongoing discussion. If you work in education or are an LMS developer, please take the opportunity to promote us to your networks.

15.03.03

Welcome to the Learning Management System forum. This forum and associated pages has been established to create a space were LMS users, administrators and developers can discuss the pros and cons of existing LMS's and the standards for online training resources.
I have established this forum following a recent conversation with Reece Lamshed of Binary Blue. Reece had made the observation that though he could find plenty of promotional material for existing LMS's he couldn't find much in the way of critical discussion or evaluation of these systems. I hope this forum will fill some of this gap.
In its initial phase this site will be split into 3 sections, a news page that hopefully will contain updates from the LMS community, the forum itself and a resources section.